Ultra Stealth DIY Basement Room

The good, I have sold my car. I've also done all the outdoor work I needed to do before the weather turned cold.

The bad, we had to put one of our dogs down. She wan't even five years old but she ultimately had liver cancer and went from being great to putting her down in less then a week. It was very hard on us but especially the Mrs. I also threw out my back pretty bad a couple weeks back. I've been physically worthless.

Further bad news, I haven't put a minutes worth of work into the basement or this project since I last posted. But that's about to change!

I WILL be going with a 3590 setup. I will probably just pay the little premium and will purchase the mau5 kits from cutter. And I intend on going the 80/20 route for fabrication.

The good, I have sold my car. I've also done all the outdoor work I needed to do before the weather turned cold.

The bad, we had to put one of our dogs down. She wan't even five years old but she ultimately had liver cancer and went from being great to putting her down in less then a week. It was very hard on us but especially the Mrs. I also threw out my back pretty bad a couple weeks back. I've been physically worthless.

Further bad news, I haven't put a minutes worth of work into the basement or this project since I last posted. But that's about to change!

I WILL be going with a 3590 setup. I will probably just pay the little premium and will purchase the mau5 kits from cutter. And I intend on going the 80/20 route for fabrication.

Anyway, I plan to post more regularly as I start building walls.

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sorry to hear about the whoa's of life,, tough to lose a good pet,,

Glad to hear about the 3590's,, you will love these things,, MJ plants eat up the cob light,, dependable ,, so very dependable,

here is the fan and speed controller I went with,,
the 6" fan is built in germany and uses ball bearings,,
variac speed controller
6" carbon filter

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That type of fan speed controller is the best type of option for controlling fans. Using a light dimmer is a cheap option, but light dimmers make your fan hum and eventually fail. Lots of posts (here and other forums) about light dimmers making fans hum.

What you have is a Variable Transformer - quite different than a light dimmer. Research how and why. There are articles online.

Twice have even been to hydroponic stores that only sell light dimmers and the store manager wouldn't deny that the light dimmer would make the hum and potentially ruin the fan. Both said they could order a Variable Transformer but quoted me in the $250 range. I couldn't go for that so I found their real cost and am more than happy with this quality model @ $75 delivered: https://www.amazon.com/Variac-Varia...rds=Variac-Variable-Transformer-output-0-130V

Thought I'd add my 2 cents on the insulation sound proofing question. I work in the fan manufacturing industry, and we mostly use fiberglass insulation to reduce noise levels, 1" to 2" (foil backed if it's on the outside of the fan housing). Most of it is loosely packed insulation, but we do use higher density stuff occasionally. In applications where it is in the air stream, we put a layer of moisture resistant sheet, and finally perf plate to keep everything together. The moisture resistant sheet is to prevent mold. I can look up the specs if anyone is interested, but I don't think it's cheap.

Foil backing is not intended to deaden noise. Its function is to maintain the integrity of the insulation, and is used on the outside skin, away from the source of noise. Layers of plastic in the HRV will act as a moisture barrier, but I question its effect on preventing condensation. I'm not familiar with HRV, but to prevent condensation, something has to be air tight. Being air tight reduces the deadening properties of material. The objective is to let the sound waves penetrate the material so they can be damped out. A solid barrier of plastic will not help with noise levels. I'm on the design end, so my involvement in selecting the material of my last project amounted to asking the engineers in the test lab what they came up with. I'm not sure if they considered HRV, but I'll ask one of them today. They are not just pulling suggestions out of a book. We have a large test lab, and a major part of what they do is testing noise levels. I know they ran experiments on this project, trying various combinations. I'll also get the spec sheet on the moisture barrier. It's a white felt-like material with high density. These are multi-million dollar projects, and we do due diligence. The bottom line is, if you don't want to spend a lot of money, use pink fiberglass insulation. It's very effective.

Foil backing is not intended to deaden noise. Its function is to maintain the integrity of the insulation, and is used on the outside skin, away from the source of noise. Layers of plastic in the HRV will act as a moisture barrier, but I question its effect on preventing condensation. I'm not familiar with HRV, but to prevent condensation, something has to be air tight. Being air tight reduces the deadening properties of material. The objective is to let the sound waves penetrate the material so they can be damped out. A solid barrier of plastic will not help with noise levels. I'm on the design end, so my involvement in selecting the material of my last project amounted to asking the engineers in the test lab what they came up with. I'm not sure if they considered HRV, but I'll ask one of them today. They are not just pulling suggestions out of a book. We have a large test lab, and a major part of what they do is testing noise levels. I know they ran experiments on this project, trying various combinations. I'll also get the spec sheet on the moisture barrier. It's a white felt-like material with high density. These are multi-million dollar projects, and we do due diligence. The bottom line is, if you don't want to spend a lot of money, use pink fiberglass insulation. It's very effective.

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HRV flex pipe is designed to and for condensation not noise. The vapour barrier is continuos and air tight. Sound insulation for ducting is always on interior of ducting or pipe. If you think about what an HRV does, expessially in a cold climate, the intake air could be as low as -35 or more. The pipe is designed to stop any condensation forming in side. Your right, foil back is nothing more than an insulation and awful shit to work with lol.